


Formerly Capt. G. Reyes

by cyrusbarrone



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Character Study, Gen, Graphic Description, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrusbarrone/pseuds/cyrusbarrone
Summary: The mask clattered on the counter top, in the dark it was unclear why it had been removed, flicked off with such distaste and what appeared almost a shudder of discomfort – of, perhaps, relief to detach it from the face. But when the light catches it, the reason becomes apparent. Its slick form fitted shape looks dull and loose. On closer inspection its texture is flaked, skin dried and lost in friction of mask against constantly deteriorating features, beyond that a dark looking ooze – something that, if not looked upon closer, would not be something to comment upon – clumped together around the flecks. Even, among the flakes and the ooze, writhes a maggot, fat and white and twitching in the nest of the slight dip of a nose plate.





	Formerly Capt. G. Reyes

**Author's Note:**

> I've never actually played Overwatch but I love its characters and Gabe/Reaper is just a stand out favourite for me. This was going to be a Reaper76 fic but my friend convinced me it would work better as a standalone character study as opposed to forcing another character in where it wouldn't work.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. As always for Andi. <3

The mask clattered on the counter top, in the dark it was unclear why it had been removed, flicked off with such distaste and what appeared almost a shudder of discomfort – of, perhaps, relief to detach it from the face. But when the light catches it, the reason becomes apparent. Its slick form fitted shape looks dull and loose. On closer inspection its texture is flaked, skin dried and lost in friction of mask against constantly deteriorating features, beyond that a dark looking ooze – something that, if not looked upon closer, would not be something to comment upon – clumped together around the flecks. Even, among the flakes and the ooze, writhes a maggot, fat and white and twitching in the nest of the slight dip of a nose plate. 

The light soon disappears, retreating at its find, leaving it once more in the still and unsuspecting darkness.

Gabriel, the owner of the mask, stands centre of the room and doesn’t click on the light – the switch stands a couple of feet away from him, though its trigger is dust marred. His features are shadowed but even in the dull grey of the room his cheeks, his thick regal nose, give a quality of crawling movement. Tectonics plates shifting. 

His stillness doesn’t falter for a while. He stands, in almost contemplation, before his shoulders relax, sag down into his torso and he steps from his stillness. A hand hidden beneath a leather stitched glove – tipped, perhaps laughably, in shining claws – rubs over the shifting face. The hand stays there, cupped over the dark hidden features, palm twitching in a movement similar to the slow circular scrubs of a wash cloth. 

The hand remains in its place all while he positions himself on a desk. A haphazard desk – its top once had a glass covering but in age splinters grew to cracks. Paper floats to the ground as he sits – showing off the age of the room, paper was nigh used in such offices these days, not even the past few years saw it, the earth grew to one with less trees and more tech and a heavy blame to those before. 

The stillness returns. He gives the appearance of a man expecting someone. 

If there were a clock in the room the heavy ticks would begin to blur into one for the time he stood there, perhaps they would have gone on long enough that ears become deaf to them. The light returns with the time, and this time it does not leave and it is not forgiving. His face is brightened enabling scrutiny. His features may once have been handsome, and to some they still may hold the sense of roguish good looks, but in a common sense of the word he is not. Beyond the segmentation of his face – mapped, nearly entirely, in stretches of pink and black scars – his features remain to appear shifting. At points the sunlight sparks light off teeth bared through patchy skin over his cheeks. The assumption can be made that it is worse with the mask – the twitch of discomfort and the quick shedding of the carefully moulded faceplate – heat drawing sweat to the surface of the slight rot flesh. Even as the light chases the dark from the office the subtle shifting of his features appears to slow, to stop, perhaps improving without the slick mask trapping heat and mildew. 

Time blurs until it becomes recognizable again, its ticking gaining notoriety as something important once more. Gabriel moves from his position – how long he had sat on the broken glass of the desk, we cannot be entirely sure – his features, or what features can be noted in the once more dark room, appear to be entirely still. The shifting halted. His leather casketed fingers touch his features again, running over the trenches and ridges of cheeks once open and bared. 

If a man such as he could appear relieved that is how he seemed. He stepped with almost hesitancy towards the discarded mask. The hesitancy could be easily sympathised with, the slight idea of the shifting rot of skin and misplaced flashes of teeth. Its shape appeared unrecognizable in the dark, its smooth features looking abstract amongst the other shadow-lined furnishings. He did not replace the mask onto his face, he held it instead between his fingers and there it stayed as he exited the office. 

It appeared that his stay in the abandoned office had come to little, the result of it no more than the pushing about of settled dust, and the subtle scent of meat-rot replacing the aged smell of yellowed paper. Behind him the door shuts quietly and the room is left once more untouched and forgotten.

The mask is replaced onto his features moments after he departs. The smooth bone-white of its moulded structure wraps around his cheekbones in a fit almost immaculate. The cut-stretches of black over his eyes darken carefully, covering up the grim red of Gabriel’s own leaving the question of features beneath. The mask itself, once on, does not shift, instead it holds its position almost perfectly and its soldier beneath does not touch its smooth white cover, despite its previously mentioned hot-sweat-rot. 

Beyond the office, the removal of the delicate shaped mask, Gabriel’s form changes. The discomfort of the ridges and knife-swipe marred flesh becomes something not entirely there anymore – something not noticed or something attention ought not to be paid to. A rigid line of a soldier keeps his back up straight and gives graceful steps to ones once distracted by palsy-like limbs. A discipline forced over discomfort to create the perfect soldier.

He steps outside the abandoned, are not all places men like he wait in abandoned, office block. The soft light of dusk holds back in surrender, from guilt of highlighting the shift and marr of hidden flesh. 

Gabriel takes a few steps, silent, without shadow, before he appears to disintegrate – as time had in the office block in which he had waited – black twists of smoke replace his once solid frame. On the ground a fat maggot writhes in its abandonment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! <3 Please tell me what you think!! 
> 
> I can also be found at frankc4stle.tumblr.com <3


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